Pensioner turns Kiev apartment building into Versailles (PHOTOS)

Portraits of aristocrats, delicate molding and antique columns – no, this is not Versailles, the Louvre, or the Hermitage; this is the entrance area and stairwell of an apartment building in Kiev, reinvented by a Ukrainian pensioner.

65-year-old Vladimir Chaika apparently did not like the way the building of his apartment looked, so he decided to change it and transformed the dirty grey walls and dusty stairs into what now looks like an 18th-century palace.

The walls are now covered with ornate molding and portraits of aristocratic women. The garbage chute has been turned into an antique column, and the ceiling is decorated with reliefs depicting angels and suns.